Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

[GakuseiDon]

If of interest - indirectly to this thread - my review of Dr Carrier's article can be found at my blog gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.co.uk - it's the article of October 2015 entitled "A review of Richard Carrier's journal article on Origen, Eusebius and Josephus". (I would have just posted the URL but, as one can't, this is my signpost.)

I think you can't post URLs if your post count is low. The url is: http://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogsp ... rk-on.html

[MrMacSon]

And why should we doubt those later Christians? What makes you think we should distrust this strong tradition of James the BROTHER of Jesus and bishop of Jerusalem?

The Christian writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries were trying to reconstruct their Judean roots at a time when they really had no clue when they had made a clean break with Judaism. It was an afterthought, a rationalization, created out of oral legends collected and recast into literary form by the likes of Papias and Hegesippus (who were not historians by any means) but similar to romanticists of the enlightenment onwards.

Good point. I'd go so far as to say "recast into literary form through the likes of 'Papias' and 'Hegesippus' .." and other 2nd century entities like 'Clement of Rome' and Ignatius. I'd also say that the texts of Ignatius and Clement fulfill the role of giving the impression that there was, in the very early 2nd century, a structured early church with bishops and priests, etc., such as a 'bishop of Jerusalem'. I don't think there is any other works that do that before the 'letters of Ignatius' and 1 Clement.

The recast legends were formulated to support Christian legitimacy as a kind of school derived from Judaic roots ...

This has some parallels with what Stephan has just posted about an impending new book in an OP for a new thread -

" ...we have been too greatly influenced by Medieval thought to accept that 'Christians thought about god in a manner in keeping with pagan religions'..." -- http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 927#p51927

[Diogenes the Cynic]

And why should we doubt those later Christians?

Because they were in no position to know.